The Milwaukee Brewers are absolutely on fire, rolling into a three-game home set against the Minnesota Twins as winners of three straight, holding the best record in all of baseball at an incredible 72-43. That’s a full 2.5 games ahead of the Braves, who are also looking tough at 69-45 after rattling off seven straight wins themselves. Meanwhile, the Twins are limping in, having lost four straight and sitting three games under .500.
Milwaukee’s Wild Ride: Dominance Despite The Stats
Let’s talk about these Brewers because they are a riddle wrapped in an enigma. They’ve got the best record, yeah, but their team hitting stats are something else: they’re at .253/.336/.398 with a .734 OPS, which ranks seventh. Not bad, but then you look at the home runs: they’ve blasted just 106 dingers, which puts them dead last in the league! How are you the best team in baseball and dead last in homers? It’s wild! They make up for it with 571 runs scored (fifth in the league) and a whopping 115 steals (fourth). This team clearly knows how to get on base and then run, run, run.
Individually, Jake Bauers leads the Crew with 20 homers, despite being day to day with abdominal soreness. Brice Turang has chipped in 16 bombs, and Jackson Chourio, after a solid series against the Pirates, has 15. Cooper Pratt, Andrew Vaughn, and Garrett Mitchell have been solid producers lately, too. Even William Contreras, Christian Yelich, and Gary Sánchez are showing flashes of their old All-Star selves, which is huge. The biggest concern for Milwaukee has to be the pitching injuries though: new acquisition JoJo Romero is out until mid-to-late August after an appendectomy, Joel Kuhnel is on a rehab assignment, Rob Zastryzny is TBD, and then you have Brandon Woodruff, Brian Fitzpatrick, Quinn Priester, and Angel Zerpa all out for the entire season. Yikes!
Twins’ Deadline Moves Can’t Stop The Slide
On the other side of the diamond, the Minnesota Twins are just trying to find some consistency. They were surprising buyers at the trade deadline, which is a bold move for a team currently three games under .500. But those moves haven’t clicked yet, clearly, with four straight losses heading into this series. Despite the struggles, the AL Central is still wide open, and the Twins are only four games back in their division and just one game back in the AL Wild Card race. With less than two months left in the season, anything can happen, but they gotta start winning, like, yesterday.
Their offense is led by Kody Clemens with 19 homers, Brooks Lee with 16, and Josh Bell with 14. Ryan Jeffers (.283) and Trevor Larnach (.280) are their top guys in batting average. They’re also dealing with some injuries, with Byron Buxton on the IL since the end of July with a right hip strain and his return TBD. Their pitching staff has been hit hard too: Cole Sands, David Festa, Anthony Banda, and Pablo López are all out for the season, while Mike Paredes, Mick Abel, and Joe Ryan are TBD. Ryan has lower-body discomfort and would normally be slated to pitch Sunday against Jacob Misiorowski, but that’s up in the air now.
This series is huge. Can the Brewers keep defying the odds with their weird power-numbers-to-best-record ratio, especially with their banged-up pitching staff? Or will the Twins finally wake up, protect their home turf, and get back in the thick of things? It all kicks off this weekend, and we’ll be watching every pitch!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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